Monthly Archives: August 2013

Yesterday morning my day started bright n early with a trip to the gym! Nothing like getting your workout over with before 10 a.m.! On the way to the gym I enjoyed my favorite cereal evvvver, special K chocolatey delight! (With strawberries! dreams do come true.) Im a huge snacker, and the car is my favorite place to snack.

My workout yesterday included:

1.5 mile sprints on the treadmill, alternating speeds

10 mins on the rowing machine

25 mins stairmaster

After the gym I decided to swing by the Farmers Market, down the street from my house. I absolutely adore farmers market, and getting fresh produce. I love knowing where my food came from, and everything here is super cheap! I browsed a bunch of vegetable vendors as well as an ammmmaaaazzzzing salsa vendor. This man makes and jars all of his salsa himself. Pretty impressive, and super tasty! I ended up getting some tomatoes, GIANT zucchini, nectarines, homemade tomato sauce, and homemade salsa.

When I got home I decided to cook up some of my veggies and throw them on some whole grain pasta! The mix included broccoli, tomatoes, grilled chicken, and zucchini, sprinkled with goat cheese and the homemade marinara sauce. Deeelish!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been more excited to end a work week. Between waking up at 6:00 a.m. to get a good workout in, and staying late at work, I am completely drained!

Workout:

When I go to the gym I usually have a plan in my head. But lately I’ve been realizing that I really only do one workout the days I don’t meet with my trainer: running & elliptical. And honestly, I am so sick of it! I talked to my trainer and he suggested that I try different machines. I am a not, I repeat NOT, a fan of change, so I was a little resistant at first, but I am SO very glad I did.

He suggested trying to stair master. Umm this thing looks like a death machine, hence why I’ve never tried it before. Seriously, who in their right mind is like, “oh that looks fun and inviting. Let me just go climb some stairs and probably fall backwards in front of all these macho-men-workout-gurus.” Yeah, those were my initial thoughts, but oh how far I’ve come. Its actually a great workout and once you’re up there you kinda feel like the queen of the gym. So, there’s that. (Im still really afraid that I’ll fall backwards or miss a step or something. Stay tuned: I’m sure it’ll happen.)

10 is the magic number today! My workout today included:

10 minutes on the treadmill. Starting at speed 6 and working my way up to 7.5 by the end.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “does this chick EVER stop eating sweets?” And the honest answer actually is no. No, I do not. I looove my sweets! However, I have a valid excuse this time. I’m going to visit my grandparents with the family this weekend, so I thought I’d bake up a few things to bring along 🙂 (In addition to the smores cookies in my last post)

This recipe was found here, and I would not have done one single thing differently. These cookie bars are the perfect sweet/crunchy ratio! I hope we have some leftovers so that I can sneak a few back to top yogurt with! Yum! I used raspberry jam, but I’m sure you could use an preferred jam/jelly and they would turn out equally as delicious!

Combine brown sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, and rolled oats. Rub in the butter using your hands or a pastry blender to form a crumbly mixture. Press 2 cups of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread the jam to within 1/4 inch of the edge. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture over the top, and lightly press it into the jam.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in preheated oven, or until lightly browned. Allow to cool before cutting into bars.

I’ll be heading up to the lake and spending some nice relaxing, quality time with the fam! Enjoy and happy weekend! 🙂

First. I am absolutely ashamed to admit that I have no had a SINGLE Smore this entire Summer. It’s August. This isn’t fine. As I realized this the other day, and had a sweet tooth the size of Texas, I just knew I had to suffice my smore craving by making something ooey gooey and chewy. Do you ever just get in the mood to bake? It seems every Friday night that’s all I want to do (old). Whatever, there’s nothing better than a glass of wine, chick flicks and baking!

I found this delicious recipe here. I must say, these cookies turned out delicious and made my entire apartment smell uh-maze-ing…however, they don’t look as pretty as I would hope 😦 oh well. Ugly cookies are cookies, too! No cookie left behind! To avoid ugly cookies — I would definitely suggest refrigerating your dough overnight. That way when you bake the cookies they don’t melt into flat pancakes like mine did. Just some food for thought!

1 1/4 cups Marshmallow Bits (regular mini-marshmallows may be substituted; if using, shelter them with some dough and don’t let them bake directly on baking sheet to prevent scorching)

Directions:

To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugars, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use a hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes).

Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.

Add the graham crackers, chocolate chips, marshmallows and beat momentarily to incorporate, less than 1 minute, or fold in by hand.

Using a medium 2-inch spoon form heaping two tablespoon mounds (I made 26). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly with your palm, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.

Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet, spray with cooking spray. Place mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet). Bake for 8 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if slightly undercooked, pale and glossy in the center. Do not bake longer than 9 minutes if you want ooey-gooey Smores-like cookies because they firm up as they cool.

I feel like I’m trying to say kiss with a weird accent. Kiss. Kish. Quiche? Ive been walking around saying it all morning, and it doesn’t get any less weird to me. Neither does that fact that I’m walking around talking to myself….. BUT whatever the case, it could be called a poo-poo platter and I’d still love it just the same! This recipe is UH-MAZE-ING.

I have a lot of favorite things in this world. Peanut butter, ice cream, rainy mornings, wine on the patio, long walks on the beach, snow days…..I’ll spare you the rest, but the list goes on and on. When it comes to food I have a few requirements that make a meal my favorite.

Number one — Cheese. The more cheese the better, in my opinion. ESPECIALLY if it’s goat cheese. (Or cheddar. Or feta. Or colby jack. Or…) Nom nom nom! Cheese can take a dish to the next level!

Number two — Fresh Vegetables. I love a dish that has fresh veggies. I cant get enough of sautéed or roasted veggies! My favorites are mushrooms, zucchini, red pepper and onion. If you mix them all together (with cheese, naturally) Im a happy camper. Plus I just love the way they add beautiful color.

So what is my rambling getting at here? This dish meets MY MAIN TWO requirements to be considered my favorite meal!

This cheesey, goey, eggy, wonderfulness is just about the perfect dish for any time of the day. AND, it was soooo easy to make. (Probably my number three meal requirement, since I know you were curious.)

After mucho research, I used the recipe found here. However, I brittified it a little bit. (Yeah, I just said that.) I added more vegetables, cottage cheese, and used cheddar instead of Muenster. (Ive always been a little intimidated by the name of that cheese…is that weird?)